The Assembly of European Regions, which represents 260 regions, onethird of them outside the European Union, has just released the results of a four-year study into the economic effects of devolving decision making to the regions in a report entitled From Subsidiarity to Success. The conclusions are that decentralisation does lead to a significant increase in economic performance. “These findings are set to open a crucial debate, particularly among policy makers in highly-centralised countries, as Europe struggles to reverse the effects of the global economic downturn” said Michelle Sabban, president of AER.

The survey looked at all the larger EU states as well as non-EU states, such as Switzerland, Norway and non- European nations such as the United States, Canada and New Zealand, to get a mix of centralised states, such as the new member states and more decentralised nations, such as Switzerland. Looking at several aspects of decentralisation, using 185 observable aspects including political decentralisation and functional decentralisation, in which 42 policy fields were examined. These figures were calculated to produce a Decentralisation Index, where the Swiss scored highest, followed by Germany and Belgium.

Bulgaria was the most centralised state, followed by the Baltic States. Some of these more centralised did have high economic growth, but BAK was at pains to point out that states would have had higher growth if they were more decentralised. Another caveat was that the survey found that, although there may be an optimum level of decentralisation, this would be different in each policy field.Despite that, they expressed some factors that explain the advantages of a less central authority. The main reason is effectiveness; regions know best the preferences of their citizens and the economic contours of their own areas.

Secondly, because regions know their regional circumstances better than a national authority, they can be more efficient in many areas. “Centralism hammers development of countries at the cost of its citizens,” said Klaus Klipp, secretary general of the AER, describing the conclusions. Urs Muller, head of the study group explained, “It is not just anecdotal, it is now a scientifically proven fact and we hope that it will give regional politicians more leverage when dealing with national decision-makers.” This independent study confirms what AER always thought, Sabban said. “These results prove definitively what AER has always known: that the economies of regions with greater competences are performing better as a result, than those of centralised countries,” she said.